


Bright As The Rain In The Palm Of Your Hand

by inlovewithnight



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-06
Updated: 2008-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Bright As The Rain In The Palm Of Your Hand

Kevin had been staring at the same three sheets of paper for half an hour, shuffling them back and forth in a slow shell-game. A random page from the middle of a meaningless brief, a printout from some ridiculous e-mail list he really needed to unsubscribe from ( _daily affirmations to improve your life_ , as if there was any hope of that short of changing his name and moving to Brazil), and a Sudoku puzzle. With any luck the intelligent frown he was aiming at them was creating the illusion that he was very busy and important and in other ways not on the phone with his sister.

"I don't get it," Sarah said, sounding interested in a bored way, which was a skill only she, out of anyone Kevin had ever met, could pull off. "I thought this guy was so great. He's the one you met at the gay lawyer convention, right?"

"LGLA annual dinner," Kevin corrected, mumbling around the end of his pen.

"You came home from that thing practically dancing. You were thrilled. And after the first date. And after the second date."

He took the pen out of his mouth and marked down a nine in one corner of the Sudoku block, then shuffled the page to the back. "Yeah. It was great, all of that was. He was great. Is, I mean. Great...person."

"Wow, your enthusiasm is just killing me."

"It's complicated."

"What's the problem? This is your fourth date. I guess he's playing kind of hard to get, but a fourth date with a great guy is a good thing, isn't it? I mean, we should all be so lucky, Kevin." A slight edge crept into her voice at the end and Kevin winced, wishing that just once he could think ahead and have these conversations with Kitty. Except that Kitty would mention Robert and Kevin would say something rude and then it would all turn into a completely different argument and God, he really needed to make friends who weren't related to him.

"You're right," he said, staring down at the brief page for a minute and then tossing it into the recycling bin. "It is a good thing. It's awesome."

"Are you not attracted? You were definitely attracted after the dinner thing. You told me and Tommy more than we really wanted to know about how attracted you were."

He cleared his throat and took a sip of stale coffee from the mug on his desk, silently cursing the dryness of his throat. He would've thought that a building like this could manage to scrub all of the pollen out of the air. Of course, he also would've thought that a Stanford law graduate could handle not putting three fives in one block. "Attraction isn't the issue."

"Then what _is_ the issue?" Sarah was distinctly impatient now, regressing to sixteen years old and trying to get out of the house in time to meet Debbie and Caroline at the movies, stopped at the door by a sibling who should know better. "I have work to do, Kevin."

"What, and I don't?"

"You're the one who called me to whine about how you're nervous about your date."

"I'm not _whining_." And he had regressed as well, ten years old, blocking her exit, and shrieking.

"Kevin, if you don't want to go, then visit your lexicon of lame excuses and don't go."

"It's not..." He filled in every space of one block with sevens and pushed the puzzle away. "It's not quite that simple."

"Either explain why not or I am going to hang up on you."

Kevin squeezed his pen tightly between his knuckles, grinding it against the joints. "Our last date didn't end well."

"It can't have been too bad if he asked you out again."

"Well..."

"Well?" Kevin could just picture the way she was raising her eyebrow when she said that. Crap. He was so screwed.

"I, um, I actually set up this one."

"I'm hanging up on you now."

He threw the pen down and capitulated in a rush. "The last date ended badly, it was my fault, I was an ass, I set up this one to apologize, I hate apologizing, I would much rather avoid the issue forever and drown my shame in cookie dough."

"Kevin Andrew Walker."

"I _know_."

"Half-credit for planning an apology, but _no_ credit for being a jerk in the first place. What is the matter with you?"

"Oh, you're one to talk, Miss..." He cut himself off and slumped lower in the chair. "Don't I get to keep some points for not weaseling out of it?"

"Yet," she said, and he winced, folding the last sheet of paper in half and reminding himself that when he made those other friends, they needed to be people who couldn't reduce him to a whining kid in Velcro shoes with just a tone of voice.

"Go to dinner and apologize, Kevin."

He nodded a little. "Okay."

"What were you an ass about, anyway?"

He sat up, spinning his chair to face the window. "I have to go."

"Oh, you are such a _lawyer_."

"Bye, Sarah."

"Call me tomorrow, weasel-boy."

He hung up and stared out the window for a moment, then glanced over at the clock. Three hours until dinner. He could probably play a ridiculous number of Internet games in three hours, since there wasn't a chance in hell of him getting any work done.  
**  
Kevin had made the invitation, but Jay had picked the restaurant. Kevin felt his credit card give a hopeless little spasm as he looked around the room; apparently his apology was going to be worth something in cash value even if he failed in sincerity.

He had to admit that he would have done the exact same thing in Jay's position, which brought a wry smile to his face as he waited for the hostess. _Two of a kind_ , he thought, straightening his tie. _Well. Almost._

"Your party is seated, sir," the hostess said, making a note in her book. "Follow me, please."

 _Crap_. Getting there first meant having the upper hand, a psychological leg up that Kevin had been counting on to balance out the disastrous end of the last date. A problem with dating other lawyers--they all knew the same tricks.

The hostess led him to a table in the back corner, and Kevin bit his lip as he saw the figure waiting. Slim, ridiculously graceful and comfortable in a dark gray suit, close-cropped reddish-brown hair, wide dark eyes, strong jaw, long fingers playing over the menu; Jay hit most of the items on Kevin's checklist of physical ideals, and it just wasn't _fair_.

He slipped into his chair and offered his best professional, greeting-the-clients smile, even knowing that Jay would recognize it as just that. "Hi. You're early."

"So are you." Jay glanced over the edge of the menu. "I ordered a bottle of wine."

"Oh." Kevin willed himself not to glance at the wine list and the smoldering remains of another potential psychological advantage. "Great."

He couldn't tell if Jay smiled or not, the menu still blocking his view, but he had a hunch. "Cabernet. Not too special. I'm not actually out to punish you."

"It's fine." Kevin opened his own menu and glanced down the list. "Order whatever you want."

"I was planning on it." Kevin could feel Jay studying him and refused to look up, stubbornly considering every item listed in the description of the duck l'orange. "Is this going to be awkward?"

"Why would you think it might be awkward?" Kevin could hear a defensive tone creeping into his voice and winced, but kept his eyes firmly on the page.

"Last time ended up kind of awkward."

He knew he shouldn't say anything, he should just shut up and choose a meal, but he just couldn't manage it. "I don't think that was quite my fault."

"Really."

Kevin was familiar with that tone; it was the _I am giving you just enough rope to hang yourself_ one, and it sent a spark of frustration up into his brain and shorted out his common sense and self-censorship functions. "Not _entirely_ my fault. I wasn't the one who just suddenly announced that I was really a--"

"Don't finish that sentence." And that was Kevin hitting the end of the noose. Jay's voice was clipped, his face carefully blank. "This is a really lousy start to an apology, by the way."

"I'm sorry." Kevin closed his eyes and took a breath, forcing his emotions into some semblance of order and control and sitting up a little straighter in his chair. "It's just..."

"I know." Jay sighed and then laughed a little, and Kevin looked up, startled that anyone he wasn't related to could go from angry to laughing at him that quickly. But Jay looked more tired than mocking. "It's just. Exactly."

"I felt like you'd lied to me."

"I didn't." Jay shook his head, running his fingers up and down his water glass. "Think about it, think back carefully, and I did not lie once."

"Misrepresented yourself, then."

"No." Jay looked sharply at him, his jaw clenching tight. "That is the one thing I didn't do. This is who I am."

"Don't split hairs with a lawyer. Not telling me that you're really...that you're _biologically_ female is a pretty significant omission."

"I did tell you. I told you when I decided that I really liked you and that we had reached the point in our relationship where it was any of your business."

Kevin slumped in his seat, rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm a gay man, Jay."

"I know that."

"That means I date _men_. It's a pretty important part of the definition."

"Okay." Jay held up his hands. "The fact that you asked me to dinner to apologize meant, I thought, that you knew you'd said some pretty insulting things and you knew better. If you know better, this is a really shitty way of showing it."

"I know, I know. Sex is biological, male/female, gender is socially constructed, man/woman, I _do_ know all of that."

"Then walk the fucking walk, Walker." Jay paused, blinking, and Kevin didn't quite manage to choke back a snort of laughter. "Shut up." Jay pressed his lips together, a smile struggling at the edges of them. "Shut up, because I am seriously and legitimately pissed off, here, and one stupid pun doesn't--"

"I'm sorry." Kevin took a sip of water and a breath, in the break in the tension. "I...well, I went through a lot figuring out that I wasn't attracted to women. To female bodies. It wasn't exactly easy."

"Oh, you want to talk about how coming to terms with your identity is hard? I'm really not going to argue with you about that, Kevin. Really."

Kevin tipped his head slightly, acknowledging the point. "Being attracted to you is messing with my whole world view. It's...confusing. I hate confusing. Where is our wine, anyway?"

"This is a nice place. The waiter won't come anywhere near us until we're done...well, not fighting. Debating." Jay ran his hand through his hair and glanced at Kevin. "So you're still attracted to me?"

Kevin blew out a sharp breath through his teeth and nodded. "I am...extremely attracted to you. And I can't think of you as a she even if I try, and it's just confusing as hell and I hate confusing and I..."

Jay grinned, the broad and beaming expression that Kevin had fallen for at the LGLA dinner, and that still made his heart jump and clench just the same way. "I just never get sick of hearing that."

"That you can't tell?"

"It's sort of the whole idea. This is me. This is who I am, and who I should have been born as, just correcting a..." He waved his hands a bit. "A mistake in packaging. There's nothing wrong with being a woman. I'm just _not_."

"You're a gay man."

"Yes."

"I think you're better at it than I am."

Jay laughed. "Now you're just sweet-talking me."  
**  
"I'm busy," Kevin said, squinting at the papers on his desk. He drew a question mark at the top, then a small frowning face, and pushed it aside to begin a pile designated _dear paralegals, try again._

Tommy laughed at him. "But you answered the phone."

"I have to answer, you might be calling about a tragedy or something important." He briskly underlined a few things on the next sheet and used it to found a _don't have **all** of the paralegals fired_ pile. "Has there been a tragedy?"

"No."

"Something important?"

"No."

"Then be quick."

"What if I was calling about business? Then you could bill me."

Kevin paused, his pen hovering just above the page. "Is it about business?"

"No."

"Then don't tease me about billing."

"Sorry."

"I'm tempted to bill you anyway."

"Yeah, you would, wouldn't you." Tommy laughed again, and Kevin rolled his eyes, stabbing at the next page and then tossing it into a third pile of _look this over again later_.

"Tick-tock, Tommy."

"You are my least favorite brother, you know that? Julia wants to know if you still want to go see that movie tomorrow."

"Why didn't Julia call me, then?"

"Why do you ask me questions that you know perfectly well I can't answer?"

"For fun." He circled a paragraph with enthusiasm. "And yes, tell her we're still on for the eight o'clock show."

Tommy cleared his throat and chuckled again, and Kevin winced, realizing that his brother was apparently feeling comfortable and chatty. This could take a while. "She thought you might cancel on her to spend time with what's his name."

"Jay."

"Whatever."

"He's busy tomorrow." Kevin capped his pen and set it aside, leaning back in his chair and giving in to the inevitable. "I'll see him on Thursday. And you should remember his name, it's not that hard. It's a letter."

"I have a policy never to learn their names until they come to dinner at Mom's." Tommy paused and then added, "That's for everyone, by the way, not just you, before you get all offended."

"Oh, thanks." Kevin rolled his eyes and spun his chair in a slow circle. "And still. It's a _letter_."

"Bring him to Mom's and I'll think about it."

"I'm not bringing him to Mom's. I _like_ him and I don't want him to know that I come from crazy people."

"Ten bucks says he's already figured that out." There was another pause before Tommy asked, in a cautious tone, "So, you really like this one, huh? It's going good?"

"It's going _well_ ," Kevin corrected, unable to keep from being pedantic before giving in. "And yeah. I do like him, a lot. It's...well, there are things we have to...deal with, I guess, sticking points, but I really like him a lot."

"What sort of sticking points?" Tommy sounded intrigued now. Kevin silently cursed at himself for forgetting his family's insatiable appetite for gossip.

"You know, just...stupid stuff. Stupid little things." He pulled his chair back up to the desk and reached for his paperwork again, shaking his head a little. "Anyway, no, not bringing him to dinner. I'm not subjecting him to the insanity."

"He might find us all charming."

"He does work with rock stars." The corners of Kevin's lips twitched and he let it go, smiling down at his desk. "He's used to a certain level of crazy, I guess. But I don't think it's the same thing as a Walker family dinner."

"Wait, he works with rock stars?"

Kevin frowned sideways at the phone. "Do you listen to _anything_ I tell you about the guys I date?"

"Not until they come to dinner."

"You suck, you know that?"

"Whatever. Are these rock stars I would have heard of?"

"No." Kevin turned his frown toward his computer and punched at links until his e-mail came up. "Young, new, trendy, not lame like you, one of the guys with a clothing line and his own vanity label and like seven blogs. Jay is the counsel for all of that. He stays very busy keeping people from suing."

"Why didn't you go into cool law like that?"

Kevin rolled his eyes and skimmed past a daily affirmation and two research clarifications that the paralegals were just going to have to figure out on their own. "Because I hate people, Tommy. And I have non-cool work to do, if we're finished?"

"Cranky, cranky."

"Goodbye, Tommy." He tossed his phone down and clicked on to the next message, then stopped, that stupid goofy grin spreading across his face again when he saw Jay's name at the top. A short e-mail asking if he wanted to get Chinese or Italian on Thursday should not make him smile like this.

"Besotted is not a good look on you, Walker," Kevin muttered, rubbing the heel of his hand over his eye. "Crap. _Definitely_ like him too much for family dinner."  
**  
Jay pushed Kevin down flat on the couch, his knee pressed hard between Kevin's thighs and his mouth hot against Kevin's neck, teeth scraping against skin already red and sensitized from being kissed and sucked, sure to bruise by morning.

Jay rocked down against Kevin and Kevin thrust up, groaning at the friction, exactly what he wanted and not what he wanted at all. Jay bit down harder and Kevin's whole body jerked, a sharp _fuck_ escaping on a broken breath.

Jay laughed, hot and smug. "You like that?" he asked, shifting against Kevin, sliding one hand down and pressing it hard against his crotch for a moment. "You like that, baby?"

"God." Kevin worked his hands down between them, catching the fabric of Jay's shirt and pulling it free of his pants, then going to work on the buttons, wanting skin, wanting heat. Jay was pressed too hard against him to make it easy, still grinding down, licking and sucking and teasing at Kevin's throat until the skin ached. "Jay, I'm too old to be going around with hickeys."

"You're no fun." Jay turned his head to kiss Kevin's mouth, hard and demanding, and Kevin closed his eyes tightly, sliding his tongue against Jay's and tasting the lingering hints of sweet and sour. He fumbled his way through the rest of the buttons until Jay's shirt hung loose and open, smooth blue cotton against pale skin.

Jay caught Kevin's lower lip with his teeth, tugging at it and then letting go to kiss again. "You _squirm_ ," he chuckled against Kevin's mouth.

"Are you complaining?" Kevin settled his hands on Jay's hips and then slid them slowly up his torso, eyes still closed, trying to see Jay's body by touch. Skin and muscle and bone under his fingertips and his palms, a fraction of an inch at a time, deliberately going as slowly as he could in an effort to make Jay shiver with impatience, to make his breath hitch.

"No." Jay sucked at Kevin's lip again, then rested their foreheads together, moving his hand down to palm Kevin's cock through his trousers and rub slowly. "I like it."

"That's what I thought." Kevin paused as his fingers reached Jay's chest and found a rough band of skin. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over it for a moment, puzzling, then opened his eyes. Jay tensed a little under his hands, then sighed, straightening his arms and bracing himself over Kevin.

"Go on," he said, a slight, guarded smile on his lips. "It's fine."

Kevin's face was hot enough to hurt, but he didn't give in to the impulse to drop his hands, shake his head and change the subject. He traced his fingers over the line of scar tissue a few more times, refusing to blink or look away, studying it carefully from one end to the other before he looked up and met Jay's eyes.

"Ideally it doesn't scar that bad, but sometimes you just get shit luck," Jay said, shrugging a little. "Okay?"

"Yeah." Kevin took his hand away, then reached out to touch the scar on the other side. "They're really not that bad. I probably wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't, you know, touching."

"Yes, you would have." Jay eased off of him slowly, running his hand through his hair and sitting down at the end of the couch. "It's kind of part of the package deal, you know?"

Kevin sat up as well, wishing he had some kind of a cue card for this to let him know if he was supposed to--or _allowed_ to--feel embarrassed or frustrated or apologetic or...anything, right now. "I'm sorry," he said, defaulting to apology as both the safest and most familiar ground.

Jay rolled his eyes and smiled, reaching out to tap his fingers against Kevin's thigh. "Don't be sorry."

"I made you uncomfortable."

"Not on purpose." Jay tapped him again and then sat back, stretching his legs out slowly in front of him. "Besides, it's probably for the best."

"Why's that?"

"If we got too much further I was really going to get pissed off that I didn't bring my dick with me."

Kevin blinked a few times, then leaned back against the couch, shaking his head. "This is just new conversational ground for me."

Jay laughed, letting his feet thump back to the floor. "Your face just turned about four colors at once."

"Sorry."

"Quit apologizing or I'm going to dump a beer over your head, okay?" Jay stood up, unfolding slowly from the couch and beginning to button his shirt. "Speaking of which, I'm going to go get one. You want one?"

"Yeah." Kevin watched him go, across the room and around the corner into the kitchen, then let his eyes close, counting breaths and heartbeats until he heard footsteps crossing back in his direction again. "So...okay, can you elaborate on that?"

"On what?" Jay paused a few steps away, raising his eyebrows at Kevin and rolling the necks of the bottles between his fingers.

"On..." Kevin waved his hand in an arc that generally encompassed Jay's crotch. "The situation?"

It was Jay's turn to blink a few times, then laugh, coming the rest of the way over to the couch and handing Kevin his beer. "I don't think I've ever heard that one before."

"I have a gift for that. Coming up with new and awful things to say." Kevin sighed and twisted the cap off his beer. "Never mind."

"Again, it comes with the territory. Which doesn't mean it doesn't suck, but I'm not mad at you." Jay nudged Kevin's knee with his own. "Go on. Ask."

Kevin took a long drink and let it settle in his stomach before he spoke. "So you haven't had the other surgery."

"No."

"Can I ask why not?"

Jay shrugged and took a drink. "You can ask, but I'm not sure you'll get an answer you'll like."

"Let's assume I asked."

Jay worried the bottle back and forth between his hands, frowning, finally addressing his remarks to it instead of to Kevin. "For like...fifty different reasons, I guess. Lots of things that just add up to it's not the right decision, for me. At this point. It's complicated and it's expensive and the results aren't always...and I'm pretty happy with the way things have sorted out for right now. It isn't totally ideal but, you know, what is, right?" Jay sighed and took another drink, shaking his head and not looking at Kevin. "So."

Kevin nodded and bumped his knee against Jay's. "Okay." At Jay's sideways, skeptical glance, he fought a smile back and nodded again. "Cool."

"Cool?" Jay raised an eyebrow, leaving Kevin wondering just how deep his stores of skepticism ran.

Kevin licked his lips. "I'm...pretty happy with the way things have sorted out for right now, too."

That smile could _still_ get him, every damn time. "Cool, then."

Kevin glanced at his watch and picked up the remote. "You want to see if there's anything on?"

"Sure." Jay moved down the couch, closer, and Kevin set his bottle on the coffee table, freeing his hand to interlace with Jay's.

"Next time," Kevin said after a few moments, keeping his eyes carefully fixed on the screen, "if you want to, I mean, don't worry about it if you don't, but next time..."

"Next time what?" Jay prompted.

"You can bring whatever stuff you want."

Jay was still for a moment, then squeezed Kevin's hand tightly. "Yeah. Okay."

Kevin nodded, still looking at the screen. "Cool."  
**  
The first three calls were from his siblings, and he let them go straight through to voice mail without hesitation. His jaw was clenched so hard it ached, along with his neck and his back and pretty much every other muscle in his body, sore from being tensed for so long in order to hold himself in check.

 _I can't believe them_ , he thought, staring at the stack of paperwork in front of him without understanding a word. _I just can't fucking believe them sometimes._

His phone buzzed again, and he closed his eyes, wishing he could just ignore it, toss it in a drawer and let it go to voice mail all damn day without his even being aware of it. But the legacy of a family attuned to worry, the chance of _tragedy or something important_ at the back of his mind, made him reach over and turn it so he could see the screen.

 _Mom,_ the phone informed him, and he discovered that his jaw could, in fact, clench harder, so much that he thought his teeth might break. He flipped the phone open and took a breath. "Yes?"

"How are you doing?" she asked, and Kevin closed his eyes tightly, willing himself not to give an inch, even if she did sound sympathetic and concerned and motherly.

"Just fantastic, Mom. Another great day at the office."

"I've been told you're not taking anyone's calls."

"That's not true. I'm talking to you right now."

"Well, yes, but I'm your mother."

"I actually knew that." He shifted the phone to his other ear, holding it in place with his shoulder and scowling at the paperwork again. "What do you need?"

"I called to check on you."

"Well, I'm fine, so I guess this call can be over."

"Kevin."

He sighed, turning his chair to face the window. "Mom, what do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me how you're feeling. Although, knowing you, you're doing your absolute best to pretend you're not feeling anything."

"You want to know how I'm feeling." He stared out at the skyline for a moment. "Well, what would be your first guess?"

Nora sighed, and he could hear her fingernail tapping against the receiver. "My first guess would be that you're angry."

"That's a brilliant deduction. I'm impressed."

"Yes, well, all the shouting you did last night was a helpful clue."

He swung his chair back around to his desk and reached for his keyboard. "I have to go, Mom."

"Kevin."

"Mom, it was possibly the worst dinner in the history of crappy Walker family dinners and I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm very sorry about your brothers and sisters. Really. I am. I love them but I know perfectly well that they can be difficult at times."

"Difficult." He stared at the computer screen. "They're worse than difficult."

"You surprised them, that's all."

"Why are you taking their side? What, were you as shocked and horrified and appalled and grossed out and...what did Justin say, again? It kind of all started to blur together after a while."

"You are exaggerating slightly. Justin said grossed out, but Justin has never been the most sensitive or tactful of my children. And nobody else used any of those words."

"It was written all over their faces." Kevin swallowed, staring down at the paperwork. "Seriously, Mom, how did you want me to react to that?"

"I think you're reading in more than was there, honey," she said, and he shook his head sharply, not wanting to let himself be lulled by her gentle tone. "They were surprised, but they're your siblings and they love you and they want you to be happy."

"Yeah, well." He grabbed his pen and scribbled a vague shape in the upper corner of the sheet. "Not at the moment."

"It'll be all right. I've talked to them, and I'll talk to them again, and they will all behave themselves whenever you're ready to introduce Jay to us."

"Don't worry about it, Mom. I don't think that's likely to be a problem."

"Honey, don't be like that."

"Mom, Jay didn't tell me I could tell anybody. It wasn't my information to share. He's going to...when he finds out I had too much wine and spilled his private life out over family dinner, he's not exactly going to be happy with me."

"Kevin, we spill everything over family dinner."

"Jay isn't part of the family, Mom, he doesn't know that, and I didn't have any right." He shook his head. "I really do need to work."

"All right. I'll let you go. But Kevin?" He didn't answer, and she went on after a pause. "Don't...don't assume anything's over until you find out for sure."

"Fine."

"That means _talking_ to Jay, honey. Not shutting him out until your expectations come true."

Kevin swallowed and tapped the pen against the edge of the desk. "Yeah. Okay, Mom. I'll talk to him."

"Good. Have a good day."

"Bye." He hung up and set his phone down, letting it spin in a wobbly arc across the desk. He exhaled slowly and glanced at the clock, then turned to his computer and pulled up his e-mail. With any luck Jay wouldn't have plans for the evening.  
**  
Jay frowned and leaned back, looking at Kevin and then away at something invisible on the wall. "Right in the middle of dinner, huh?"

"Technically it was over dessert, I guess." Kevin looked down at his hands, clenched together in his lap. "I'm really sorry."

"How did it even come up? I mean, it's not really something that...here, have some random information about the guy I'm dating and please pass the salt?"

"You don't know my family?" Kevin laughed a little despite himself, choking on the sound and its inadequacy to convey everything Jay didn't know about his family. "We hit the wine hard and we talk about _everything_ and none of us have been able to keep a secret from each other, ever, since the day we were born."

"Babies don't usually have a lot of secrets," Jay said absently, worrying a bit of paper between his fingers.

"No. I guess not." Kevin wished they'd met at a restaurant, somewhere that could be neutral ground instead of the unstable footing of Jay's apartment. "But I was outed over a family dinner, my brother admitted he was sterile at dinner, my other brother announced he was joining the Army over dinner...it's kind of a weird family tradition."

"Does anyone ever _eat_?"

"Surprisingly, yes. We do manage." Kevin looked at Jay for a long moment and then reached out, losing his nerve just before he touched Jay, his hand left hovering in the air. "I know it wasn't my thing to tell, and I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Jay looked at Kevin's hand, tilting his head a little like he was studying a specimen. "I mean, it's not _okay_ , but it's...okay."

"Can you elaborate on that?"

"Can you put your hand down?"

Kevin was pretty sure that if he kept feeling around in the air, he would eventually run into a solid brick wall between them on the couch. He let his hand drop to the cushion. "Sorry."

Jay shifted in his seat, his face inscrutable. "So your family is close?"

"Yes. Sometimes disturbingly so." Kevin sat back, trying to put more space between them, to make enough room that Jay would look a little more comfortable. "We all still live close to home, we have dinner together once a week or so, we _work_ together, sort of, it all...interconnects. We're just kind of in and out of each other's lives all the time." He looked away, trying to make a point of looking at each piece of furniture and each wall, giving Jay more space that way. "I guess it's kind of creepy and incestuous, really."

"No, it sounds nice." Kevin glanced back to him, just in time to catch a slight smile before it faded. "I can tell they're really important to you."

"So are you."

"I know." Jay smiled again, then shook his head and ran his hand over his hair. "But...their opinions are important to you. You care what they think."

Kevin frowned. "I suppose so, yes. I mean, they're my family."

"Right." Jay nodded and sighed, clasping his hands together between his knees. "But I guess what I mean is, their opinions are important enough that if they don't like me, or don't approve of me, that... _matters_ to you."

"You think I'll break up with you if you if my siblings tell me to?"

Jay shrugged. "They're your family. Family is important."

"So are _you_." Jay sighed again and rubbed his hands over his eyes, and Kevin pressed on, turning his frustration into a different tack. "What's your relationship with your family?"

"It varies." Jay leaned back, curling into the corner of the couch and looking at Kevin with still carefully guarded eyes. "My mom, my stepdad, my older brother, we send cards at Christmas and birthdays. They always address theirs to Janet, which is a pretty good sign that there's no point picking up the phone yet. I talk to my dad about once a month or so, and we e-mail. I think he's still hoping it's a phase, but he's at least respectful and supportive, so, you know, that's better. And my little sister, she's fantastic. We hang out all the time and she's very protective and writes to her Congressional reps and all that. She's great."

"Wow." Kevin thought about that for a moment, rubbing his palms together. "That's is great, how your sister is. I'm sorry about your mom. You would think it would be the other way, with your mom and dad, it seems like usually..."

Jay laughed a little, waving his finger at Kevin. "Begone with your gender stereotyping."

"Touché." Kevin smiled and then looked down at the floor, sobering. "Their opinions do matter to me, yes, but they don't _dictate_ anything."

Jay nodded slowly. "Okay. That's...yeah, that's fair. I just need you to know that their opinions can't be important to _me_."

"What do you mean?"

Jay was leaning forward now, toward him, which Kevin hoped was a good sign. The invisible wall seemed a little bit thinner, at least. "The only way to live my life and stay sane is to keep really strict lines between people whose opinions matter and people who don't. Your opinion matters very much to me, at this point. Your family's opinions don't. They can't. I'd go nuts."

"That makes sense."

"So if their opinions start affecting _your_ opinions, let me know, and otherwise...I'm just going to kind of pretend they don't exist, I think."

"Wow." Kevin laughed. "That is a trick I would love to master."

Jay smiled and rolled his eyes. "It has its ups and downs."

"So we're okay?"

"Yeah." Jay reached out this time, brushing his fingers over Kevin's arm. "We may still discuss better things you could do with your mouth than _talk_ , but we're okay."

Kevin licked his lips, bringing his other hand over to catch Jay's and weave their fingers together. "That sounds promising."

"Mm." Jay smiled and moved closer, nudging his knee against Kevin's thigh. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah, actually. Starving."

Jay rubbed his thumb over the back of Kevin's hand, watching it slide over the veins and tendons. "Let's try something new."

"Sure." Kevin sternly reminded himself that they were talking about _food_ , and his pulse could just quit jumping any time now. "There's a new Indian place a few blocks down, I think they deliver."

"You want to look it up online?" Jay nodded at his laptop, leaning against the couch by Kevin's foot. "Order in, watch a movie?"

"Sounds good." Kevin turned and grabbed the laptop, smiling at Jay over the edge of the screen while it booted up, then glancing down as it chimed softly. "You have an alert."

"What does it say?"

"T." Kevin frowned, puzzled, and looked at Jay again. "What does that mean?"

"Oh." Jay shook his head, turning the laptop toward him and clicking until the alert went away. "I need to do my shot." He glanced up, caught Kevin's look, and smiled a little. "Hormone shot. Testosterone."

"Oh. Right, of course." Kevin blinked a few times, then swallowed. _Man up, Walker. Also, stop thinking things like 'man up.'_ "You need any help?"

"It's actually...kind of a personal thing." Jay flushed slightly, setting the computer carefully back on Kevin's lap. "Not personal like I don't want you, specifically, there, but...well, it's kind of a little ritual, almost, that's just me and...thank you, but no thank you, okay?"

"Okay." Kevin nodded, trying to put as much reassurance in his smile as he could. "I'll go ahead and order the food."

"Thank you." Jay stood up and stretched. "Pick a movie, too?"

"Sure."

"Choose wisely and well, comrade." Jay grinned slowly, and glanced at Kevin with a distinct, hopeful light in his eyes. "And if you play your cards right, you just might get lucky, Walker."

"You wouldn't tease about that, would you?"

"Only one way to find out, huh?" Jay winked and sauntered out of the room, leaving Kevin to shake his head, fight to control his own smile, and turn back to the screen.  
**  
Kevin looked at the phone screen, took a deep breath, and snapped it open before he could change his mind. "Hello, Kitty."

"My God, he lives."

"What do you need?"

"We had bets going on who would get you to stop screening your calls. Everyone's money was on Sarah."

"Good to know I'm not entirely predictable, I guess." He smiled, rolling his pen between his fingers. He hadn't realized he'd missed his sister's voice.

"Not entirely, no," Kitty said, and he could just picture the wry look that went with that tone. "Which is kind of what started this whole silent treatment, isn't it?"

His smile faded and he set the pen down again. "What do you _need_ , Kitty?"

"I called to say I'm sorry."

"Really?"

"Yes."

He blinked, frowning at his computer like Outlook would provide a translation of this. " _Really_?"

"Yes! God. I am capable of apologizing. I can admit when I'm wrong."

"Well, that puts you ahead of everyone else." He shook his head and spun his chair in a slow circle, turning his head to look out the window.

"No. We've all been trying to call you and apologize all week. Which you would know if you would answer the phone."

He picked at the arm of his chair. "I was pretty angry."

"I know. We all know. Hence the wanting to apologize."

He had to give her that one. "Thank you."

"We were this close to staking out your apartment, actually."

"Well, thank you for not doing _that_."

"So how are you?" By his estimation, based on long experience, she sounded about seventy-five percent genuinely interested. "Not angry anymore?"

"It's faded to sort of quiet disappointment," he said, just a bit pointedly in the interest of getting the numbers up. "And I'm okay. In general."

"And you and Jay are all right? Mom said you were afraid Jay would be mad at you for telling us."

Kevin pulled the phone away and stared at it for a moment before putting it back to his ear. "She should just invest in a recorder to make it easier to repeat all of our conversations verbatim."

"Are you kidding? She's Mom. She doesn't need modern technology." They laughed in weary, shared understanding for a moment. "So you and Jay are okay?"

"Yeah. We are." He spun the chair again, all the way around, picking his feet up off the floor and grinning to himself. "We're...great, actually. Amazing."

"Good. I'm glad." Kitty paused for a moment, and when she spoke again Kevin had to blink and sit up straighter, because this tone was approaching ninety-five percent sincerity and he hadn't thought that was allowed. "You know I mean that, right, Kevin? I want you to be happy. Whatever and whoever makes you happy is completely, absolutely fine with me. I am for it. You being happy is the most important thing."

"I do know." He blinked against the suspicious heat in his eyes and nodded at the window. "Thank you, Kitty."

"And that goes for _all_ of us."

"I'm still going to make them all grovel and apologize."

"Well, duh. Of course." They both laughed again and she added, "Justin even bought a book, you know. He's been lecturing all of us all week."

"Wow. That is impressive." He rubbed at his eyes, banishing the suspicious watery feeling. "Thank you."

"Always, Kevin." She cleared her throat and went on briskly, and he silently thanked her again. "Now. When can I meet Jay?"

"Kitty..."

"Not a whole family firing-squad thing. Just you and Jay and me and Robert. Lunch, maybe, or coffee?"

"Robert will behave?"

"Hey. I'm not judging your significant other, you don't judge mine, okay?"

"Yeah, fine." He smiled and turned his chair back to his desk, reaching for the mouse. "I'll check with him and let you know, okay?"

"I'm going to hold you to that."

"Okay." He brought up a window, then stopped and minimized it again. "And Kitty?"

"Yeah?"

"I hear the grammatical contortions you're going through to avoid using pronouns. It's really not that hard. He, him, his."

"Oh." He'd kept his tone as gentle as he cold, but he could tell she was blushing anyway. "Okay. I didn't want to get it wrong."

"It's okay. I just wanted to help you out. Some people use gender-neutral pronouns, but he goes with masculine. Easy."

"There are no gender-neutral pronouns in English."

He bit his tongue on a suggestion that she borrow Justin's book, doing his best to banish the reflexive glee of being able to correct his older sister. "English is remarkably flexible."

"I guess. But he goes with he. Okay. I can do that." She cleared her throat. "Now. You've been out of the loop. Who do you want to catch up on first?"

"Depends." He brought the window back up on his screen and studied it with half his attention.  
"Who's done the most embarrassing thing?"

"Justin."

He closed the window and leaned back in his chair, smirking up at the ceiling. "It's like fish in a barrel."  
**  
Kevin eased the car into traffic, glancing over at Jay in the passenger seat. "Still time to back out, you know."

"It's fine." Jay straightened his tie, running his fingers absently over the silk. "Really."

"I won't be upset or anything, is all I'm trying to say. I can call them and tell them we've changed our minds and then you and I can go get dinner anywhere you want."

Jay looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me that you've changed your mind?"

"No!" Kevin gripped the steering wheel tighter. "I just don't want you to be uncomfortable, so I'm trying to come up with all of the outs I can."

"That's very sweet." Jay looked out the window again, resting his hand on the edge of the door and drumming his fingers along with the radio. "But I've met them all now, you know. I've had lunch with every one of them, been wined and dined all over Los Angeles, so I don't think it should be that big of a deal."

"It's different when they're all together." Kevin wished he had any way of really putting this into words. "It's...putting them together is an exponential effect, not an additive one."

"If you think showing off your vocabulary is going to turn me on, then...well, you're surprisingly right." Jay glanced at him and grinned, reaching over to brush his fingertips along Kevin's thigh. "Relax."

"Do you want some kind of a signal? So if you do get uncomfortable, we can escape?"

"We're not spies, Kevin."

"We would be awful spies."

"Speak for yourself."

"My family would blow my cover."

"They absolutely would." Jay rubbed Kevin's thigh some more. "What's it going to take to get you to relax?"

"An act of God or some kind of assurance that my family will behave. Which is really the same thing."

Jay sighed. "Remember, your opinion is the one that matters, okay? Other than that, I wash my hands of your panic."

They rode in silence for a moment, until Kevin glanced over at him again. "Thanks for doing this."

"I'm pretty easy for a free dinner and a lot of wine."

"Those are both guaranteed at my mom's house." Kevin reached over to flip through the radio stations. "Why is there never anything good on?"

"I have about six different promo CDs in my bag." Jay watched him with an amused, tight-lipped smile, and Kevin huffed a sharp breath.

"That isn't fair."

"I like watching you try to come up with new and interesting ways to say no thank you."

"It's just really, _really_ not my thing. At all. It's not even in the same metropolitan area as my thing."

Jay laughed and covered Kevin's hand with his, guiding it away from the dashboard. "Which is why I grabbed a variety today. I think I have some that are a little more your style."

"I'm not averse to trying new things." Jay laughed again and Kevin rolled his eyes, feeling his face heat. "Shut up."

"I was just going to say 'and thank God for it.'"

"Cute." Kevin smiled and shook his head. "All right, fine, enlighten me about music."

"For what it's worth," Jay said, slipping a disc into the player, "I don't really like the more recent stuff either."

"Yeah? Do you tell your boss that?"

"Do I look like I'm crazy?" Jay rolled his eyes and hit play, and Kevin reached over blindly to take his hand.

After a few more stoplights, Kevin looked over at him again. "You know, we could just drive around all night listening to music."

"Quit trying to chicken out, Walker." Jay squeezed his hand tightly. "They're important to you. If we can all get along, that's ideal. And based on the lunchapalooza, I think we _can_."

"I promise Justin won't have any questionnaires this time."

"It was very thorough. I was impressed." Jay nodded toward the speakers. "What do you think of this?"

"I think it's kind of awful."

"I'm collecting data. One of these days we'll find something you like." He squeezed Kevin's hand again and let go to eject the disc. "Almost there?"

"About two more blocks." Kevin took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, reciting the stupid thing from that morning's daily affirmation, which promised to release his anxiety to the universe. "You're very calm. Maybe I'm the one who needs an emergency signal."

"If you scream and run out of the room, I'll take it as a cue to follow."

"Ha. I guess that works." Kevin looked over at Jay and swallowed, trying to put all of the sincerity he could in his tone. "Really. Thank you for doing this for me."

Jay smiled and took his hand again. "Thank you for asking. It means a lot."

"No questionnaires, lots of wine, and I can't promise no insanity but I'll do my best to throw myself on the grenades before they go off."

"Don't do that. I like you in one piece."

Kevin pulled up into the driveway and parked behind Tommy's car, noting with absolutely no surprise whatsoever that everyone else was already there. They all had to arrive early to yell at each other and run in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. It was a rule.

He looked over at Jay, then leaned across the console to kiss him. _They're happy if I'm happy,_ he reminded himself, _and I am_. "Let's go."  
**  
"Justin, I can give you five minutes," Kevin said, holding the phone in place with his shoulder and handing the folder over to his secretary, mouthing an exaggerated _Thank you_. "Then I have to work. You might have heard of it, even though you don't believe in it."

"That was harsh."

"I'm busy."

"Okay, okay, I'll be quick. I need you to ask Jay something for me."

Kevin squinted at the next piece of paper on his desk and scribbled his signature across the bottom. "If it's anything anatomical, ask him yourself."

"Dude. Don't be gross."

"If you can't look him in the eye and ask him yourself, you don't need to know. And maybe try to look it up in that book of yours, first."

"It's not anything anatomical!" Justin sighed irritably and Kevin grinned, ruffling quickly through the rest of the paperwork and then leaning back in his chair. "God."

"Okay, so what is it?"

"I was wondering if he could get me tickets."

Kevin's brow furrowed. "Tickets?"

"To a concert? From his boss? Try to keep up, old man."

"My boyfriend is not your personal box office."

"Yeah, but he knows people. It's like an obligation for him to help out those of us who don't, but want awesome seats at concerts anyway."

Kevin looked sideways at the phone and rolled his eyes. "That is...really not an obligation at all, actually."

"Okay, but it would be _nice_. And Jay is a nice person, right?"

"Jay is a very nice person." Kevin smiled and swung his feet cheerfully. "Jay is exceedingly nice."

"Dude. If you're...implying and innuendo-ing, just knock it off, okay?"

"If you want people to do you favors, it's really on you to suck it up and deal, you know."

"Will you just ask him?"

Kevin counted to fifteen, dragging out the pause long enough to drive Justin crazy. "Yeah, okay."

" _Thank_ you."

"No promises."

"He'll come through. He's awesome."

Kevin grinned, leaning back in his chair. "Yeah? You really think he's awesome?"

"He's like six hundred times more awesome than you are. He's totally trading down in this relationship."

Kevin rolled his eyes and sat up, dragging the chair back to his desk. "I have work to do."

"You'll ask him?"

"I said I would, didn't I? I'm not going to see him till this weekend, but I will ask him."

"Why aren't you going to see him? You two aren't breaking up, are you? Hold on to the awesome ones, Kevin, how many times do I have to explain this to you?"

"We're not breaking up, you moron." Kevin shuffled his papers around some more, biting his lip to try to control the stupid grin on his face. His secretary tended to get suspicious when he smiled too much and then came up with ways to return him to an even keel. "We just both are busy and important and have _jobs_."

"You are not important."

"Thanks for the ego boost. Anyway, we're both busy this week, but we're going out of town this weekend. He booked a hotel suite in Malibu and--"

"Dude. I don't want to hear this." Justin sighed, and Kevin wondered again at the amazing baby-of-the-family power to sound put-upon when he was the one asking for a favor. "Have fun or whatever, and tell him thanks for me."

"Will do. Bye." Kevin hung up and frowned at the next few papers, scribbling rapid notes in every margin and then putting them in a new folder. The day's affirmation e-mail had said that two-minute breaks were excellent for productivity, and who was he to argue, so he turned to his monitor and pulled up Outlook.

Jay was the first name in the inbox, and Kevin promptly clicked, tapping his fingers against the edge of the desk. _I want OUT of here,_ the message said. _This place is driving me crazy. Four days! I can't wait. I'm already packed and I miss you._

Kevin bit his lip so hard he tasted blood, then gave up and let himself grin. _Re: all of it_ , he typed, hiding his smile behind the monitor. _Me too._  



End file.
